Saturday, June
5, 2004: Today Juli and I departed for Seattle to participate in a cruise
to Alaska on the occasion of Juli's father's 80th birthday celebration.
Juli and I will also be celebrating our 25th anniversary in July of this year,
so we are also making this our 25th anniversary celebration.

Upon arrival in Seattle, we met some
of Juli's brothers and sisters at the "Seattle by the
Space Needle Travelodge" in downtown Seattle where we would stay the
night.

We first went over to Denny Park with
Laura and Richard. Denny Park was the first municipal park established in
Seattle. It was a beautiful day and the park was covered with many wonderful
flowers. We also had some nice views of the Space Needle.

Juli and David on a bench at Denny
Park; One of the beautiful flowers in the park; view of the Space Needle.

Later in the day the four of us
joined Kathy and Bob and took a small tour of the city and then we all went down
to the Pike Place Farmer's Market along the bay. It began to rain as we
went up on a hill overlooking the city and the Space Tower. We got to the
park in the middle of some television show filming. At the time, we were
not sure what the filming was for. We later figured out that it was for
the USA TV Series "The 4400." This was a
fascinating visit...large fish markets, street musicians, all kinds of crafts.
The area seemed very hippie-ish to me. We had fun down there.

L: Seattle as seen on "The 4400";
C: Pike Place Saturday Crowd; R: A man playing piano on the street

That evening, though really tired, we
went to a diner behind the hotel with Laura, Richard, Kathy and Bob. I
think it was a 24 hour diner called Cafe Minnie's. It was convenient, but was
also very interesting. All of the workers were punk rockers and the music
was also punk music. The waitress reminded me of a
Trailer Park Troubadours song, "My Baby
Whistles When She Walks", because she had a lot of body piercings. Juli
also got to pose with a guy I named Spike. The pictures below tell it all.
Oh, and I can't forget Juli's teeth. She put in her fake "Kentucky teeth"
and went over to Spike and told him that she was from Kentucky and "ain't never
seen such spiky hair." She then asked if she could have a picture with
him.

Juli with the "Whistling Waitress"
and with "Spike"

The food at the diner was actually
quite good, despite having an atmosphere we were not accustomed to. But,
people are people. Click here for
a slide show of the Seattle visit.